


Working in Hell (AKA an office)

by Cry3TearsLikeJ3T



Category: Take That (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Office, M/M, They work in a boring office and get up to stupid stuff, and Gary is terrible at communicating surprise surprise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-10
Updated: 2019-09-10
Packaged: 2020-11-02 02:34:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20592287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cry3TearsLikeJ3T/pseuds/Cry3TearsLikeJ3T
Summary: To put it briefly, they work in a boring office, Gary & Jason actually want to get some work done while the others...not so much and ridiculous but classic shenanigans ensue.





	Working in Hell (AKA an office)

**Author's Note:**

> This was just something short I wanted to write before I start on my next big TT fanfic following my assassin fic, so if you liked my humour and such there, you may enjoy this shorter piece.  


Gary wasn’t entirely sure of what time it was when he found himself being halted from his work, but what he was sure of was that it was certainly too early for Robbie to be up to his usual disruptive antics. He’d heard a strange noise not long ago and let it go, but then the noise came back and it was incredibly annoying and so he did what he always did, pushed himself away from his desk and leant out of his cramp office cubicle to see what was happening. Except this time he found himself instantly leaning back in as he narrowly missed being hit by Robbie himself.

“Sorry Gaz, didn’t see you there,” Robbie said, halting himself in his tracks, which gave Gary a good look at just what he was dealing with that morning.  
Robbie had apparently been wheeling himself through the office on his chair and while Gary knew he’d regret asking, he had to know the reason for it considering it was before ten in the morning.

“Rob, what are you doing _now_?” He questioned, and Robbie looked back over his shoulder quickly before responding.

“Racing Howard and-” Robbie took another look over his shoulder.

“And apparently destroying him,” He finished, and Gary shook his head.

“And why are you doing that?”

“Because I was bored when I got in an hour ago so I went to find some food, except when I got to the breakroom, I found him eating the last biscuit so I challenged him, loser has to buy more biscuits,” Robbie explained, and Gary raised an eyebrow.

“But I just bought some yesterday, they can’t all be gone.”

“Sorry, let me rephrase that, Howard was eating the last _good_ biscuits.”

“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with the ones I buy,” Gary argued.

“Yes there is, they’re plain and they’re boring,” Robbie said, and Gary folded his arm to further express his annoyance.

“Firstly they’re better for you and secondly, they’re not _boring_, you’re just saying that cause they’re not like the ones Mark buys, which are just pure sugar by the way.”

“That’s what somebody who eats boring stuff would say but now I’m really sorry Gaz, I’ve got to get going before Howard shows up…not that he’s going to catch up at this rate by the looks of things,” Robbie said before he began to push himself away, and it was then that Gary remembered something.

“Uh Rob, are you _sure_ that you’re ahead of him?” Gary called out, causing Robbie to halt himself once more and spin around in his direction.

“Yeah, I never saw him get ahead and it’s not like he could sneak past, we were supposed to take the same route,” Robbie replied, and Gary nodded.

“Right, it’s just earlier I heard a noise similar to the one you made when you were approaching, except I didn’t get a look at what it was but if you’re sure then it was probably nothing,” Gary said, and Robbie seemed to take this in for a moment before he looked ahead, froze and started off again, this time at an abnormal speed.

Gary then leant back into his cubicle, pulled himself over to his desk once more and began to type because it was Friday and he really didn’t want to stay back late to get his work finished.

He worked undisturbed for another two hours until he felt a presence and he knew that working would no longer be possible. The person didn’t even have to speak before Gary knew who it was that was watching him.

“Morning Mark,” Gary greeted before he turned in his chair and looked up at the small man, who was most likely balancing on his own chair to see over the top of the ridiculously tall divider between them.

“How’d you know it was me?” Mark questioned, seemingly quite impressed by the not so difficult guess work.

Mark Owen had been Gary’s neighbour at work since he started five years ago as opposed to Gary’s eight years at the office. He was a kind and rather eccentric man who had no problems with asking people for help after Gary had had a long talk with him about suffering alone, which he had been doing for the first six months until it was getting ridiculous. Mark wasn’t necessarily shy but he had some self confidence issues but they’d been working on that together and were making good progress in Gary’s opinion.

“Because you show up every day at the same time with some problem that’s not really a problem Mark,” Gary explained, and Mark shook his head.

“No, I show up because something awful has gone wrong and I need your help because Jason won’t help me anymore, says it’s “Gary’s problem now” or something, so I did as I’m told and came to you,” Mark responded, and Gary sighed before standing up.

“Alright, show me the problem.”

Gary then left his cubicle and followed Mark, who really could’ve just come next door to ask for help but always opted to lean over the divider, into the printing room.

“Ok, what’s wrong today?” Gary asked once inside.

Mark then pointed at the printer, which was currently in the middle of printing out quite a number of sheets, presumably somebody’s important work.

“It’s making a weird noise,” Mark replied, and so Gary listened but he couldn’t hear anything strange, it just sounded like it was working away normally.

“Sounds fine to me,” Gary said, but Mark seemed to be troubled by this.

“Can’t you hear it?”

“Hear what?” Gary questioned.

“The _noise_.”

“All I can hear is the printer making it’s usual noise,” Gary replied, and Mark’s eyes widened.

“So you _can_ hear it?”

“I don’t understand what’s wrong here Mark.”

“The printer always makes this noise every time I use it and I don’t like it,” Mark explained, and it was then that Gary caught on and he felt like his brain was about to shut down.

“Mark, are you telling me that the weird noise you don’t like is the sound that the printer is supposed to make and always has done?”

“It’s _supposed_ to make that noise?” Mark asked, clearly in a state of complete shock as he looked between the printer and Gary.

“Yes, it is,” Gary replied, but this didn’t seem to comfort the small man.

“Can’t you do something about it?”

“Why? It’s not broken.”

“Because I don’t like it.”

“Mark please, I have work to do,” Gary said, and Mark sighed quite dramatically.

“Ok, you can go but I still don’t like it,” Mark muttered, a frown on his face as he wrapped his arms around himself.

Gary felt guilty for leaving Mark in the room alone but he had too much to do and not enough time to do it if he helped Mark out with every little problem he had. Fortunately though, the guilt didn’t last too long as the moment he stepped out the room, he bumped straight into Howard, who was standing there with a file under one arm. 

“Sorry about that How, you came out of nowhere,” Gary apologised, but Howard shook his head.

“It’s fine, I should’ve moved,” Howard said before looking past Gary and at the door to the printing room, seemingly quite tense.

“Everything alright?” Gary questioned, checking behind himself before turning back.

“Is anyone in there?” _Ah._

Howard Donald was a very mysterious and cryptic man in Gary’s opinion. He knew very little about the tall man personally and while he was a perfectly lovely and kind man, who was ready to crack a joke and mess about when given the option, he was also rather peculiar because he carried a strange energy to him that made one feel like he had a long and dark past even when he most likely didn’t. However despite all this mystery, Gary also knew that Howard was actually quite shy and didn’t really enjoy interacting with people he wasn’t familiar with, especially in such a cramp room like the printing room.

“It’s just Mark, he was just complaining about the noise the printer makes, which he didn’t know was supposed to happen,” Gary replied, and Howard seemed to relax upon hearing this. Mark he could handle.

“Right, well I’ll see what I can do for him,” Howard said before the two went their separate ways as Gary made his way back to his desk and Howard went inside the room.

Gary then worked for another hour before his lunch break came around and he decided to take what he’d brought in and take it to the break room. However, he quickly regretted this as he approached the room and saw through the window that Robbie, Howard and Mark were already inside. Now this wasn’t an issue on its own but Robbie didn’t look impressed, Mark was stealing biscuits from the centre of the table and Howard was sitting rather calmly with that same neutral expression of his, which probably meant that Robbie was complaining again. Unfortunately for Gary though, he was too close to turn back now without somebody noticing.

So, he continued and entered the room to find exactly what he thought, Robbie complaining. Gary was quiet as he made his way over to the seat beside Robbie and sat down.

“Look, just admit you cheated and I’ll call us even,” Robbie said as he went to reach for a biscuit before grasping nothing and frowning.

“I’m not a liar Rob so I won’t be doing that,” Howard responded, leaning back in his chair.

"You are because there’s no way you went past me this morning, I would’ve noticed, so admit you cheated,” Robbie argued, and it was then that Gary realised just what they were arguing about.

“You’re not seriously arguing over your bloody chair race are you?” Gary questioned as he unwrapped the tinfoil that had been protecting his sandwich.

“We are.”

“Why?” Gary asked with a sigh because even though it was clear, he felt like he needed to hear the full story in case it was far more ridiculous than it already sounded.

“Because even though I was winning and didn’t see Howard pass me once, he somehow beat me to the finish, so he obviously cheated and took another route to win,” Robbie explained, and Gary shook his head because yeah, it was even more ridiculous when he explained it.

“Rob as much as this probably means to you, I need you to understand that this is absolutely ridiculous, it was a just a stupid race you had because you were upset about another ridiculous issue, so why don’t you apologise for accusing Howard of cheating, considering I did tell you that I heard somebody go by before you, and make up, ok?” Gary said, and Robbie seemed torn as he looked between Gary and Howard, who was now leaning with his eyes closed, before he let an extremely exaggerated sigh and spoke.

“I’m sorry for calling you a cheat Howard,” Robbie said, and Gary was slightly taken aback that his words had actually worked on him for once.

“I mean I wasn’t really offended but apology accepted,” Howard responded, his eyes remaining shut as he did so.

“Are we all ok then?” Gary asked, and everyone nodded.

There was then peace and Gary picked up his sandwich, pleased that for once he could actually eat without somebody arguing or talking obnoxiously loudly. However, the moment he went to take a bite, the door swung open and in marched Jason Orange.

“Which one of you broke the printer?” Jason questioned, not even giving the door a chance to shut before he spoke.

Jason was another good friend of Gary’s and they’d known each other since they’d started working at the company almost a decade ago. Jason was dedicated to his work, never satisfied and always pushed himself and everyone around him to their limits, which was unfortunate for Robbie as he’d never shown much enthusiasm for doing so unless it was on his own terms. 

“Why do you always assume it was one of us?” Robbie asked as everybody turned their attention to Jason.

“Because it’s always one of you, so fess up and I’ll let it slide,” Jason replied but nobody spoke a word.

“I really wish you’d just admit when you’ve done something wrong Robbie, it makes life so much easier.”

“Stop being a bitch Jay, you always say it’s my fault first,” Robbie argued.

“Because it usually is.”

“You’re just saying that because you don’t like me.”

“Not true, I don’t really like Mark but I don’t accuse him first,” Jason responded, and Gary looked at Mark to see a look of absolute shock on his face, as if he hadn’t done many things to inconvenience Jason, even if they were with the best intentions.

“You don’t like me? I thought we were friends!” Mark exclaimed, and Gary could foresee a lot of chaos if he didn’t put a stop to it.

“Last week I asked you to hold my house keys for a minute and you managed to get them stolen by a bird!” Jason argued, and while Gary wanted to hear more on that, he really had to say something before somebody got hurt.

“It looked so sad when I told it no!”

“That doesn’t mean you toss them to the magpie!” Ok, this was bad.

“Ok let’s just calm down for a minute!” Gary exclaimed, and there was silence as all attention now turned to him.

“Look, I understand that Mark is a handful but he doesn’t mean to be, he’s just a bit clumsy and simply cares too much and also, Robbie didn’t break it so lay off him will you?” Gary said, and Jason raised an eyebrow.

“You have evidence of this?”

“Well no but I mean when have you ever seen Rob use the printer, let alone break something?”

“He broke my chair after he broke his own,” Jason responded.

“He broke the two pens and pencils I lent him,” Mark added.

“He destroyed my desk plant,” Howard said, and Gary sighed.

“Those were all accidents and I admitted to them all!” Robbie exclaimed, and Howard shook his head.

“Doesn’t matter, you murdered Paul and I can’t forgive you,” Howard replied before Jason spoke up again.

“But back to the real issue here, you can’t keep defending Robbie just because you’re sleeping together.” Gary was silenced by this as he felt the heat rising to his cheeks. Now this was bringing up a memory that Gary had been trying to hide.

Last year at the office Christmas party, Gary had been quite bored and so had spent most of the night hanging around with Robbie, who was a lot of fun both at work and at a party it turned out. However things had quickly escalated as the two got a little tipsy and ended up making out in the cleaners cupboard, which wasn’t exactly a bad thing, not at all, in fact, it had been a highlight as Gary was a bit pent up and Robbie was an insanely good kisser. This little session had then led to the two sneaking out and going to Robbie’s place where they then had some sex, the best Gary had ever had if he had to be honest. Now, there was an issue with this of course because as much as Gary wanted to sleep with Robbie more or even date him properly, since they got on quite well and had a lot in common when they wanted to, there was the problem of the no office relationships rule. Gary had always been one to follow the rules and so had called it a drunken mistake and said that it would never happen again, which was actually quite painful to say because Gary missed it, he missed _Robbie_.

“We’re not _sleeping_ together Jason, it was one time, ok?” Gary responded once he’d found the words to say, and Robbie’s frown did not go unnoticed.

“Really? You could’ve fooled me with the way you look at each other.”

“Well I’m sorry to disappoint but can we please get back to the printer?” Gary asked, desperately trying to change the subject.

“Fine, is _anybody_ going to confess?” Jason questioned, and that’s when Howard sighed.

“Right well I didn’t break it but if it means so much to you, I’ll fix it,” Howard said before standing up.

“That’s not really the point but thank you How, that’s very nice of you,” Jason responded as Howard began to make his way towards the door.

“Oh I’ll come with, maybe you can fix the noise,” Mark then said before too stood up and followed Howard out the door.

Gary then looked up at the clock and lunch was nearly over. He sighed once more.

*  
Howard shut the door behind him once Mark was inside the printer room and leant up against it as he looked at the sparking machine before him.

“So do you think anybody knows?” Mark asked as he approached the printer, which sparked at him, making him jump back.

Howard took a moment to respond before Mark was wearing some very tight trousers that day and he simply took the view in quietly before responding.

“Don’t think so, I mean, why would they?”

What Howard was referring to was the fact that he’d come in early to Mark in distress and so he’d attempted to solve the problem and he did, just not the conventional way. Howard had accidently used a bit too much force on the machine and had broken it but he wasn’t going to admit it of course. That would just put both himself and Mark in trouble and he didn’t want to have to pull some overtime when he’d much rather be at home doing nothing.

“I don’t know, Jason just always seems to know everything.”

“Perhaps.”

The two then stared at the sparking printer for a few minutes before it was obvious that it was beyond repair and Mark spoke.

“Do you wanna go find an empty cupboard and make out instead?”

“Yeah.”


End file.
